Sticky Options

I've heard rumors that this idea has made its way into
planning, but I'm concerned that it not be crowded out by other
froofraw in a race to keep up with OtherCAD.

The idea is that any dialog box that allows the user to select an
option (e.g. a Property Manager) should remember what the user
selected. The next time that that dialog is launched, it will
default to the last used setting.

The benefits are manifold. One is that the UI quickly becomes
"personalized" to the workflow of the individual. Another is that
it may serve as a reminder/warning of an incorrectly set option.

I believe that this functionality should persist between sessions -
NOT be limited to the current session only. Perhaps a system option
would allow a toggle in this mode of persistance.

I believe that this functionality should supercede the existing
amnesiatic behavior that SW has traditionally coded into the UI.
This might be another system option toggle for those who love to
repeat themselves.

I further believe that this functionality should pervade all
checkboxes, radio buttons, text, and numeric entry fields.

Again, another great idea I'm all for. But this would be a
useful addition. I am sure development time would be better spent
redesigning the user interface and instant 3D again for 2010.
Perhaps a few more hundred redundant commands, as well.

I like the idea of having that be an option to set in the
system options. Check the box to carry your values over between
SolidWorks sessions, uncheck it to have it only for this session.
(like the Add-Ins)

It seems to me that won't happen for the following
reason...it is such an obviously desirable feature that it must
have been suggested a million times in the last ten years, and the
fact that it doesn't work that way still tells me that it would bee
too resource intensive to be feasible.

Think of it this way, and forgive me as I'm not a software
programmer, but if you're programming a command, every command with
a dialog box, then the code for the command has to reference some
sort of database of current/last settings. Seems like a whole
nother layer of programming.

All that said, I 10000% agree that this would be extremely
desirable, just seems that if SW made it this long without such an
obvious idea tells me that it's probably for good reason that they
don't do it.

The fillet feature in 2009 is an example of the UI
remembering the last used type.... and I absolutely
HATE this behavior here. To me, it would boill down to user
preference and they probably don't do it because I would want an
option for each feature to remember or not depending on what I'm
working on at the time.

I think the problem with software companies like Solidworks and
Microsoft alike, is they cater and develope their software for new
(or dumb) users. And I suppose to simplify is better and sometimes
less is more but not in this case. They tend to ignore or
backburner advanced users for reason. I think their should
definately be more advanced options that long-time users can toggle
on/off. They do have an advanced tab in the options now but it is
not very thought out and is deserving of a lot of extra
attention.... unfortunately like I said, they tend to develope to
gain NEW users.

I love the new sticky options in fillet, surface offset and delete
face, particularly delete face. I use it 90% of the time to simply
delete a face, but in previous versions it was always giving me the
"face cannot be patched..." error because I forgot to select that I
wanted the delete face command to do only what it's name describes,
and nothing more.

Hey Will, I love this feature, I simply don't like it as an
all or nothing. The delete face is a great example of where I do
like it. Like, I said, it would be nice if there was an option in
each command dialog to remember the last used or not or go back to
default.

Been preaching this to my VAR, SW Enhancements Portal, and fellow
workers for years!

Response has been "Deaf Ears", "Black Hole", and "Yea like that
will happen!"

Response about similar issues from "Gold Partner" Add-ins has been
even more disappointing. CAMWorks has some of the most inane dialog
boxes imaginable and the option to cancel out of a disastrously
abortive action isn't even available in some.

Does anyone from SW EVER weigh in on these topics to explain their
reasoning to users?

I would love to grow some respect for the programmers who rule our
every working hour!

Does anyone from SW EVER weigh in on these topics to explain
their reasoning to users?

I would love to grow some respect for the programmers who rule our
every working hour!

I don't work for SW, but I do know for sure that the
employees do care. I know too many of them and their passion for
putting out good software to believe otherwise. And yes, sometimes
they will chime in here to explain some reasoning.

Will it ever be perfect for all? No, can't be, because we all ask
them to get rid of the junk in there that is slowing us down, but
the problem is that junk to me is your mainstay. Kind of like
politicians - "Throw the bums out, just not my bum!"

As far as this topic, I haven't decided if I would vote for it or
not. Part of me agrees that it could speed things up because if you
did things consistently, then some options would change to your
pattern. But on the other hand, I see it as adding a level of
complexity and resource allocation that I think might be better
used elsewhere. If every box or button I checked had to be written
to the disk every time, I'm not sure the cost is worth it. But as I
said, I haven't really decided which way I would desire.

I agree with you that "the problem is that junk to me is your
mainstay", and I admit to being a focused user who doesn't venture
very far afield into the phenomenal range of features and
capabilities that SW has.

I have noticed, however, that SW chooses to retain "last used"
values in some of their dialog boxes including sheet metal, and
weldment features, and yet does not retain values in a CORE dialog
box used by, I would guess, 98% of all SW users, the Mate Dialog
Box.

I was absolutely thrilled to have multiple mates as a new
capability after using a "home grown" macro for a couple of years,
and then was dumbfounded that the next big enhancement to Mates was
changing the distance default to 1.000 instead of the metric
conversion .39xxx. What a useless change, probably garnering
support for it from perhaps .ooo1% of the users whose commonly used
value is 1.000.

My mainstay (your junk) is .010 for a distance offset and I
probably type that in 30-40 times a day.

Perhaps making EVERY dialog box remember last used values would be
a memory hog and slow things even further than they are, but why
not for a CORE area like mates that I'm guessing everyone uses.

BTW ((my junk) anyone's mainstay?) knurled knob to adjust
dimensions??
Even my VAR was clueless and snickering about that enhancement a
couple of years ago!

My point about "respect" has to do with communication. I have no
doubt that the people writing code are very capable and working
very hard to produce a great product. Unfortunately, I have come to
refer to any communication with SW whether through their portal,
VAR, regional rep, direct phone connection to Arizona(once in 6
yrs), and once in a user phone survey, as the "black hole of client
requests".

I have NEVER received any direct response to my inquires from SW.

That's why I'm jumping on the bandwagon of "Please pay attention to
users AS WELL as your sales department" when making programming
decisions, and an occasional explanation in response to users Rants
might at least make us a feel more "warm and fuzzy" towards the
home office.